could not stay at home, though. I had heard that they were to set up their own Rebecca to harm Mrs. Phillips and discredit me with my own people. There was more danger than usual tonight and still is. I instructed Aled that you were not to be told.”
“Because I am a woman,” she said.
“Yes, because you are a woman,” he said, his voice exasperated. “Not because I did not want you with me, Marged.”
But there was no time for more conversation. They turned into the laneway leading to Ninian Williams’s farm and were there a minute later. The door was wide-open and there was light and noise coming from inside. There were a few men in the yard, scrubbing their faces at the pump, and two women bearing towels.
“Down you get, men.” Ninian himself was greeting them in the yard. “I will have your horses put with ours and no one will know the difference. Into the house with you. We have an engagement to celebrate and now we will have both halves of the couple in attendance. Hello, Marged. I am glad you could come at such short notice.”
They were inside the house a few moments later, blinking in the lamplight. Rebecca had a hand against the small of her back. The room was full of men and women and even a few children. The kitchen table was laden with food, as though the party had been planned a week ago. And then silence fell.
“Rebecca,” Mrs. Williams said, her hands clasped to her bosom. She sounded frightened.
“Aled, you are safe.” Ceris flew toward him, her hands outstretched as he peeled off his dark wig. “Take off the gown quickly and we will hide it with the wig. Wash your face.”
Marged continued on her way across the room to hug her father, who was standing with his back to the fire. “Thank you, Dada,” she said into his ear. She was just beginning to understand what was happening. The trap must have been set in the village and this had been her father’s idea to give all the men an excuse to be away from home. But Rebecca need not have shared the danger. He might have ridden safely home.
The Reverend Llwyd patted her waist. “Get rid of that disguise quick,” he said, looking across the room at Rebecca. “There is no hiding the truth from everyone any longer. Get it off and we will have Ceris push it under the manure pile with Aled’s.”
Marged caught her breath in a gasp and whirled about to gaze across the room. Of course! But she did not want it this way. She had wanted it to happen when they were alone together. She did not want it to happen now. She was not ready for it. She was not sure she wanted it to happen at all. She would be staring at the face of a stranger—her lover.
The wig came off first. Mrs. Williams took it from his hand. The mask, as Marged had suspected, was a cap that fitted right over his head and face. It was peeled away next and handed to Mrs. Williams.
The silence became almost a tangible thing.
“Duw,” someone said softly.
“We have been betrayed. We are done for after all.” It was Dewi Owen’s voice spoken into the silence though no one responded to it.
“Off with the gown!” the Reverend Llwyd said. “Ceris, take those things but with Aled’s now. The Lord be praised that everyone is safe. And everyone is safe, Dewi Owen. His lordship, the Earl of Wyvern, has been your Rebecca from the start.”
Geraint Penderyn dragged the white gown of Rebecca off over his head and Ceris whisked it away with the rest of his disguise and Aled’s.
Then he looked across the room and met Marged’s eyes.
There was no shock in her eyes, no accusation, no anger, no bewilderment. Nothing. She stared at him blankly.
And then someone came darting through the door and broke the tension like a knife slicing through butter.
“They are coming,” Idris Parry called in his piping child’s voice. “A whole crowd of them on their way up the hill. All of them on horseback.”
“Thank you, Idris.” The Reverend Meirion Llwyd, from his position of command before the fire, raised both arms, his Bible clutched in one hand. “Let us show these men, my people, how the Welsh celebrate an engagement, the solemn promise of a man and a woman to enter into matrimony together in the sight of the Lord.